


Gamblers

by sparklefox



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklefox/pseuds/sparklefox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bartender AU. Petra, a lovely loser working on her PhD, is a regular with a crush on a boring cocktail expert. The harder they try, the harder they lie. (Petra x Annie)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“My name’s Petra.”

“I remember.”

“Oh?”

“You tell me every week.”

“Well, it’s unfair we only get one chance to make it right.” She paused to swallow a tiny burp. “The first impression, I mean.”

Annie gave her a perfunctory smile and lifted her glass to wipe the counter underneath.

“Could I get…,” Petra said slowly, her eyes running over the bottles behind Annie before settling upon her. “A kiss?”

“You’re really drunk.”

“I’m really gay.”

“Plenty of beautiful girls around, tonight. Go get’em, tiger.”

“This isn’t a gay bar.”

“Didn’t seem relevant ten seconds ago.”

The girl’s cheeks were flushed. “I made out with a tree, once, you know.”

“Lucky tree.”

“It was last week. After I asked you again, and you said no again, I went out and threw up a bit — the two are probably related on a subconscious level, but don’t worry, I would have barfed even if you’d said yes. Possibly in your mouth, so it’s a good thing you turned me down. Anyway, I was outside and night buses were no longer running, so I called my friend Hanji — well, she’s not really my friend, she’s my PhD supervisor, but we get along swimmingly and… what was I saying?”

“Three B-52s,” Annie told a customer, setting down the perfectly layered shots in front of him. She glanced at Petra. “You threw up and made out with a tree.”

“Ah yes! Thanks. So, I called Hanji, and while I was waiting for her to come pick me up, I sat down by a tree and at some point we found ourselves locked in a passionate embrace. Me and the tree, that is. Not Hanji and I. That would be weird. Not gross-weird, mind you, just random-weird. Anyway, it wasn’t very nice. With the tree, I mean.”

Annie almost played along, but she knew better. “Plenty of other fish in the sea. Here’s your change,” she said to the man who’d ordered the B-52s.

“To other fish, then,” Petra shrugged, finishing her drink in one gulp. “I think I’m going to need another one.”

There was no reason to say no, really. The girl was sloshed, but she wasn’t about to pass out, and she wasn’t being rowdy. Annie took her empty glass, grabbed a clean one and mixed her another mojito. “There you go.”

“Thanks.” She took a sip and made a face. “Oh wow, it’s stronger than the previous one.”

“Too strong?”

“No, no, it’s never too strong,” she mumbled, fumbling with her wallet until she gave up and pushed a handful of crumpled bills towards Annie. “Whatever, I don’t care. Just keep the change.”

Annie hesitated. She wasn’t one to turn down a healthy tip, but the girl was a good customer. A happy regular was worth a lot more than a one-time tipper realizing how stupid they’d been the next morning and never coming back. She only took the needed amount and pushed the rest back towards Petra.

“I said you could keep it.”

Annie raised an eyebrow. “All fifty-seven dollars?”

Petra looked down at her money, blinking a few times. “Oh. Well yeah, ideally, but I’m kind of broke at the moment, so...” She squinted, gathered about eight dollars and held out her hand. “Take this, though.”

“Thanks.” Annie nodded and slipped the tip inside her back pocket. “You do remember you’ve already given me ten dollars earlier, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. But that was before I asked you for a kiss. It was my I-hope-she’ll-say yes-this-time-if-I-bribe-her tip. This one is just my thanks-for-not-watering-down-my-drink-and-also-for-not-ripping-me-off tip.”

Annie shook her head, but leaned over the counter and placed a light kiss on Petra’s cheek.

The girl stared at her for a few seconds. “I knew I’d tip my way into your heart eventually.” She did a little victory dance, banging into a chair in the process. “Shit, sorry.” She picked it up from the floor. “That was sneaky, though, I wasn’t ready. You’ll have to do it again so I can enjoy it properly.”

“Right,” Annie smirked. She knelt down to empty the crate of Corona Christa had just brought back from storage, then proceeded to refill the fridge.

Petra’s voice came from above. “Hey, I’m serious. Was it your way of telling me to stop asking or do I have a chance?”

“If you’re _serious_ , ask me again when you’re sober. You’ll get a _serious_ answer.”

“Handling rejection is a lot easier when you’re drunk.”

“It sure is.”

The girl sighed and brought her glass to her lips. “Fair enough.” She sucked a big ice cube into her mouth and kept it there for a few seconds, until the cold became unbearable and she had to spit it back. “I’m gonna go dance, now.”

She didn’t. She just crossed her arms atop the bar and rested her head there. She was a good dancer, from what Annie remembered – relaxed, a little awkward, a little out of sync.

* * *

Petra finally lifted her head and looked around. “I lost my drink,” she said to no one in particular.

Christa heard her and retrieved the mojito from a shelf. “Annie put it up there to make sure nobody could spike it while you weren’t looking.

“Where’s she?”

“She left a few minutes ago. Her shift was over.”

“I fell asleep. I think I dreamed. It was odd. I wanted to know if you were hiring, and she was like, ‘we’re looking for a bouncer, Iet me see your resume’, and for some reason I had it with me, but it was blank.”

Christa smiled, drying a set of cognac tumblers with a washcloth. “Are you looking for a job?”

“Oh no, I’ve got one. My PhD scholarship used to be enough but my roommate moved out a couple months ago. He’s the idiot dancing over there,” Petra said, pointing at Auruo. “So until I find a cheaper place, I had to either find a job to cover his half of the rent, or stop drinking my money away here.”

“What a conundrum. So, what’s your PhD about?”

Petra snorted into her drink. “Applied physics.”

“Seriously?”

Petra started spinning lazily on her stool, a hand on the counter to steady herself. She closed her eyes. The colorful strobe lights above the dance floor flashed on her retina anyway. “Yep.”

“So that’s why you need to unwind here every weekend, huh?”

Petra stopped spinning and winced when a wave of dizziness washed over her. “Possibly. Do I need a reason?”

“There’s always a reason.”

“So how about… I like feeling drunk. Or maybe I like the bartender. Or I just like feeling drunk so I can tell the bartender that I like her and not die of embarrassment. Who knows?”

“We’re talking about Annie, right? Just making sure.”

“Oh yes, I mean, you’re gorgeous and everything, and so are the others, actually come to think of it you’re all really good-looking, which is statistically rather— anyway. Yes, I meant Annie. Say,” she added after a while, “do you know her well?”

“If there’s something you want to know, you should ask her directly. She won’t mind. And if she does, she’ll let you know.”

“But that’s the thing. I know that as long as it doesn’t get inappropriate, being drunkenly flirted with kind of comes with the job. So I have no idea if I’m actually bothering her.”

Christa gave her an apologetic look. “I don’t know either. We haven’t talked about it.”

“God,” Petra sighed, her shoulders slumping. “What if she’s secretly like, ‘I wish this weirdo would get off my back’… that would be mortifying. What if she’s not into girls and I’m just making her really uncomfortable, or worse, what if she _is_ into girls but not into me. What if she’s already in a relati—”

“Look,” Christa interrupted, “I don’t know the answer to all these questions, and if I did, it wouldn’t be my place to tell you. But what have you got to lose? The hard part’s over, she already knows you like her. Just ask her out. Even if it turns out she’s not interested, you might end up with a friend instead. And then you’ll move on and I’ll become your favorite bartender.”

“Deal,” Petra chuckled. “It’s not that easy, though. People turn you down and say it doesn’t change anything, but it does. Still, you’re right, it’s not like there’s much to ruin in the first place. Other than my heart, that is.” She laughed and took a swig. The ice had melted, it didn’t taste as strong.

* * *

“Hello, hello.”

“Oh, hi. Didn’t expect to see you here on a Monday. Can I get you anything?”

“Nope, because… guess what time it is.”

Annie glanced at her watch. “Ten to one.”

“Well, yes but,” Petra shook her head, “more importantly, it’s I’m-sober-and-about-to-ask-you-out time!” She flashed her an irresistible smile. Her hands were cold and sweaty.

“Oh my,” Annie said evenly. She finished what she was doing, then crossed her arms. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“Holy cow, you’re intense. All right.” Petra cleared her throat. “Would you like to have coffee with me? Not now, just, in the foreseeable future. I know this really nice café. Well, it’s a bit of a hipster den with stone walls and vintage couches and free wi-fi for wannabe writers and students pretending they’re in Brooklyn. But it’s… they have good pastries.”

“Sure.”

Petra felt like she was on autopilot. “Thanks.” She cringed. “I mean, great. It’s great. Are you free sometime this week?”

Annie nodded. “Thursday’s my day off.”

“Thursday sounds good. I get off work at five, but it’s not far so maybe we could meet up around then? I’ll text you the address. If you’re fine with me having your number, that is.” _Awkward awkward awkward. Fucking practical details but I just—_

“Yeah, no problem.”

Petra took out her phone, unlocked it and handed it to Annie, trying to keep her hand steady. “Here.”

“I don’t see the ‘new contact’ button.”

“The little plus sign at the top.”

“Oh, okay.” Annie began typing. “So you’re working? I thought you were a full time PhD candidate.”

“It’s only part time. My job, I mean. I kinda need the money at the moment. I work at a sex shop.” Annie’s eyes shot up from the screen. Petra laughed nervously. “Just kidding, sorry. I do grunt work at a florist’s. I thought it’d be glamorous and I’d get to arrange extravagant bouquets, but he only lets me clean stuff and trim stems and cut myself with thorny roses. And the shop’s got this really corny name, too. Levi’s Secret Garden. It would work better if it _was_ a sex shop.” She took a deep breath. “Actually, I could use a drink.”

Annie gave her a brief smile. “What would you like?”


	2. Chapter 2

Petra scanned the crowd with a frown. She did a double take when she noticed a little blonde staring at her with a smile that didn’t look like one.

“Sorry, I didn’t recognize you with the glasses and the…” she said, motioning towards Annie’s hoodie. “It suits you.” She sat down in the opposite armchair. “What are you reading?” Annie slipped a bookmark between two pages and closed the book to show Petra the cover.  _The economic development of medieval Europe._  “That’s…”

“Dull?” Annie offered when Petra failed to come up with an appropriate adjective.

“Surprisingly endearing. I’m working on a PhD, remember? I’m pretty much married to obscure research topics.”

“What’s obscure about it?”

Petra swallowed. “I suppose it’s just obscure to me. It sounds very specific.”

“I thought so too, at first, but it’s actually pretty vague. Medieval Europe was diverse, and the Middle Ages aren’t a unified time period either,” Annie explained, her voice a little distant. Mistaking Petra’s perplexed look for a sign of doubt, she hesitated before adding, “from the fall of the Roman Empire to the fall of Constantinople? That’s a long time. Almost a thousand years.” 

“Okay,” Petra said slowly. “Are you a bartender with a penchant for medieval history, or…? Please don’t tell me you’re working on a PhD, too. That would be a dramatic plot twist.”

Annie shook her head. “I just take online courses when I have time. Grinding my way towards an economics degree.”

“I had no idea. What do you plan to do with it?”

Annie shrugged. “I’ve got this friend, Hitch. She’s a born entrepreneur, so the plan was to get our degree like this and maybe set up a business together afterwards. But a year ago, she created this low-key smartphone app, and it got huge. So she dropped out to focus on that and about a million other ventures. I kept going.” She paused, but Petra kept quiet. “I don’t really know why. I don’t even like statistics or marketing, or even numbers. But the history classes are interesting. Commerce, trades routes… the way economy shapes everything, cities, roads, wars. It just makes sense.” She stopped talking again, and Petra didn’t know whether she was waiting for her to say something, or just searching for the right words. “It makes sense but it drives people crazy, too. I was reading about Magellan’s insane quest for the Spice Islands, it’s almost… I don’t know.”

Petra nodded. Catching a glimpse of someone’s inner life, proving her fantasies wrong, or right – it went to her head. “My university has a great library. If you ever want to study there or borrow books, I could probably get you a card. Or lend you mine if you want to access to our online databases. They’re really good.”

For a second, it looked like Annie was trying not to laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Petra rolled her eyes. “What, didn’t you know? I don’t seduce beautiful women with flowers or candlelit dates. I lure them into hipster cafés with promises of shiny library cards.”

“What a lady killer you must be.”

“Not quite.” Petra was relieved to see a waiter coming their way. “Anyway, what will you have?”

Annie looked at the menu written on a chalkboard hanging on the wall. “What would you recommend?”

“I have weird taste.”

Annie glanced at her. “I’ve noticed.”

Petra wanted to fire something back, but the waiter was already by their table.

“Hi, what can I get you? Today’s blend is Arabian Mocha Java. It’s a bit on the strong side, but with chocolate overtones.”

Petra snickered. “Did you read that off the packaging?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“It must be true, then. I’ll try it. And I had some really good lemon pie last time, do you have it today?”

“Of course. That one I can personally vouch for.”

“Really? I’ll have some cheesecake instead, then.”

The waiter gave her a puzzled look but composed himself admirably. “Sure.”

“Just kidding. It wasn’t funny, I know. Lemon pie it is.”

He nodded, suppressing a smile, and turned his attention to Annie.

“Lemon pie sounds good,” she said. “And jasmine tea, please.”

“Coming right up.”

Petra waited until he was far enough. “What is it you’ve noticed, exactly?”

Annie seemed to consider her answer carefully, but in the end, all she said was “You’re not offended, are you?”

“I don’t know, should I be?”

“I wasn’t referring to your…”

A few seconds passed. “My what? You can say it, you know.”

“Fine. Sexual orientation? God, this is awkward.”

“For you, maybe.” Petra shrugged. “Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“No, that’s what I’m trying to say. I’m surprised you’re interested in me, that’s what I meant. It came out wrong.”

“I’m just messing with you,” Petra said quietly. It was clear Annie didn’t believe her. Petra’s smile widened. “I didn’t think I could make a seasoned bartender blush so hard. Too bad it’s just out of embarrassment.”

“If you want a seasoned bartender, talk to Christa. She’s tough.”

“And you’re not?”

It was the first time she saw Annie laugh. “Me? Oh no, I’m really not. I’m as weak as it gets. Everything makes me blush, you should have noticed by now.”

Petra felt like she was being played. “Funny I didn’t. And I’ve been paying such close attention to your  _delicate_  features for the past months, too.”

“Dim lights, strong drinks… maybe you just saw what you wanted to see. That’s what bars are for, isn’t it?”

Petra narrowed her eyes. It was like walking on thin ice, but as intoxicating as it was, she didn’t want to turn this into a cat-and-mouse game. “You make it sound so complicated.”

“Make it sound simple, then.”

There was no irony in her voice, but she was hard to read. Petra hoped the question was genuine. “Okay, how do I put this?” She exhaled silently. “I think about you a lot. I wonder what you’re like when you’re not mixing drinks. I don’t know what I want from you, except some of your time.” And honesty was just another front, nothing felt right.

Annie was about to say something when the waiter came back with their order. They watched him set the plates and cups down on the table. Petra returned his smile. Her eyes fell on his name tag. Gabriel. Lovely name. She felt as tense as a bow string.

“I’m not used to that kind of attention,” Annie said when he was gone.

_Cards on the table_. “Unwanted attention?”

Annie seemed to give the question some serious thought. Petra tried to take comfort in that, in knowing that someone thought she deserved that much.  _Some serious thought._  But really, she hated it. That the answer wasn’t instantaneous, that it wasn’t the one she needed to hear. 

“Not entirely,” Annie finally said. “But I think ‘some of my time’ really is the only thing I can give you.”

Petra cleared her throat. “Time’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

_No._  “Yeah. What else is there to give, anyway?” She pushed her mocha towards Annie. “Come on, try this for me.”

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“It has chocolate overtones.”

Annie gave her a pointed look, but brought the cup to her lips and took a sip. She seemed surprised. “It does, actually.”

“Really? That’s neat.” Petra lifted the cup, careful not to place her lips where Annie’s had been. She swallowed with a frown. “It doesn’t taste anything like chocolate.”

“No.”

“Cute. Next time you want to pull a prank, I’ll give you some tips.”

“Oh, you tip me just fine,” Annie smiled. “That’s why I always put your drinks somewhere safe when you go off dancing. Next time, I’ll let the nearest creep spike it, how’s that for a prank?”

“And here I was, thinking my drinks were left untouched because nobody wanted to rape me at the back of a van. There goes my faith in humanity.”

“Perhaps you’re too trustful.”

“True,” Petra chuckled and ran a hand through her hair. “I’ve paid for it a few times. I can’t help it.”

“Sure you can.”

“I guess, but expecting the worst from people must be exhausting. Maybe that’s why you look so tired.”

“Touché. Your turn.” Annie held out her teacup.

Petra took a tentative sip, burning her tongue in the process. “It smells like jasmine and tastes like hot water.”

“See? No surprise there.”

“You don’t like surprises?”

Annie shook her head. “I wish I did, sometimes.”

“I hear you. It’s hard work, making room for the unexpected in your life.”

“Yeah. It took me a while to get to that point – having a steady job, I mean, and getting into those online courses in my free time. It’s not very exciting, but it gives me structure. That’s something. I don’t want to mess it up.” 

Petra poked her slice of lemon pie with a spoon. “I think I was like that, a few years ago. I couldn’t do without some sort of steady routine, but as months went by, I felt that it caged me as much as it supported me. There’s always a tradeoff, I suppose. And ditching it altogether rarely works out. Either way, you can’t win.”

 

* * *

 

“I’ll get the tab.”

“No, no.” Petra scrambled to her feet. Annie looked up. “You want to pay because then you won’t owe me anything, which means you won’t feel obligated to see me again.”

“How insightful.”

Petra tucked her hands inside her pockets, clutching whatever crumpled paper was in there until her fingers hurt, a wry smile on her lips. “I was hoping to dazzle you with my confidence, but really, I’m just an insecure idiot. Please, let me get it.”

Annie didn’t insist. “Okay.” She rummaged through her bag and for a second, Petra thought she was going to pull out her wallet anyway, but it turned out she was only looking for her cigarettes. She got up and put on her coat. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

“Sure.”

Petra watched her walk out of the café. She hated that moment, when something you’d been waiting for was about to end before you even got to enjoy it, and the only thing to look forward to was a handful of memories, already filtered through expectations and disappointments. And the awkward goodbyes,  _if you have time right now we could go have a drink_ , or  _it was nice,_   _let’s do that again some time_ , or _can I call you later?_ … She’d have loved to be on the receiving end, for once.

“Want one?” Annie asked when she joined her outside.

“I don’t smoke, but thanks.”

Annie turned her head to avoid blowing out smoke in Petra’s direction, but the wind blew it back anyway. “Sorry.”

Petra blinked. “It’s okay.” She tightened her scarf around her neck, trying to find something to say. “So, what do you do when you have a night off? I mean, your sleeping schedule must be completely upside down.” 

“Yeah. Nights sort of blend into days, sometimes I have breakfast while watching the sunset.” She sounded so tired. “I try to go to sleep earlier than usual when I’m not working. Or I just read, work on some assignment, watch movies.”

“The Quiet Life of a Quiet Bartender,” Petra mused. “It’s a good title. I’d pick it up, if it were a book.”

“What kind of book?”

“A collection of weird, experimental short stories, self-published by an obscure writer. Much later, an archeologist exploring an old bookstore unearths it. The cover catches their eye, there’s not even a price tag on it and the owner is just like, whatever, if you buy something else I’ll give you this one for free. And that’s how it all begins.”

Annie dropped her cigarette butt on the pavement, not bothering to crush it. “The book’s story sounds more interesting than the book itself.”

“See, there’s no book. It’s blank. It’s actually a  _note_ book. That’s the story. It hasn’t been written yet. There’s just a title,  _The Quiet Life of a Quiet Bartender_. I’m not sure where I’m going with this.”

“Flirting with existential metaphors instead of library cards?” Annie offered.

Petra glanced at her and poked the cigarette butt with the tip of her sneaker. It was still smoking faintly. “Making fun of me, now?”

“A little.”

“You know,”  _shut up Petra shut up shut up,_  “I’m pretty sure you’re actually a flowers and candlelit dates kind of girl.”

Annie took out another cigarette. “Maybe. Flowers are nice. Beautiful things are nice.”  

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, it was silly. I don’t know what kind of girl you are.”

“It’s fine. I don’t know either.”

“Probably because you’re many things. Many different girls rolled into one. That’s why you’re so cool,” Petra said, flashing her a cocky smile.

Annie seemed unsure how to respond for a second, but ended up laughing it off. “What do you mean, many different girls?”

“Well,” Petra said more seriously, “Nobody’s just  _one_  kind of person. I’m interested in that, in people whose contradictions seem to be… I don’t know, part of who they are? I want to understand them, but at the same time, it’s restful to accept that not everything has to be figured out. But hey, maybe I’m just projecting and you’re as straightforward as it gets. Pun intended.”

Annie brought her cigarette to her lips and slipped her free hand under her hoodie, rubbing the back of her neck. “Everyone has contradictions. You must be interested in an impressive number of people.”

“Are you trying to get me to tell you why you’re my special snowflake?” Petra deadpanned.

Annie shook her head, but she was smiling. “You just can’t stop flirting, can you?”

“Oh come on, this isn’t flirting. I’m just open about the fact that I like you, and you want to know why. It’s okay. Who doesn’t want to know?”

Annie nodded, and Petra imagined what it would feel like to hold her close. To walk with her arm around her shoulders, to go somewhere together. “I should go home. I’ve got forty papers to grade before tomorrow morning.”

“You have students?”

“Yep. Most PhD candidates are TAs as well – teaching assistants. I have two classes this semester. Tiny, innocent freshmen. As it turns out, I enjoy teaching a lot more than, you know, doing actual research. Which is becoming a bit of a problem because that PhD isn’t going to write itself,” Petra sighed, rubbing her eyes. “So stressful.”

“You didn’t even tell me what you were studying.” 

_You didn’t ask._  “Christa knows, she’ll tell you. Or you could add me on Facebook, it’s on my profile.”

Annie gave her an amused look and took out her phone. “What’s your last name?”

“It’s not under my real name,” Petra said, unlocking her own phone and launching the Facebook app. “It used to be, but students started PMing me and adding me and it was getting annoying. That, and I wanted to keep my embarrassing pictures relatively private. Not that they haven’t found ways to dig them out, but oh well. Here, I just added you. You entered your last name in my contacts when you gave me your number,” she said quickly, not wanting to sounds like a creep in case Annie had forgotten.

“Okay. Done.” Annie scrolled down Petra’s profile for a few seconds. She glanced up briefly.

“What? Is there something weird I forgot to delete before adding you?”

“I don’t know,” Annie smirked, showing her the screen.

Petra squinted. A recent status update:  _it is 5:03 i smashed into a tree (i AM smashed get it ardghdg don’t let me drink ever again)._   _i kissed it all_   _better. Here Lies Petra, Who Did Her Best_.  
There were a few likes and comments underneath, the latest one by Rico:  _I can’t believe you were driving under the influence. Do you have insurance?_  
Petra’s reply:  _what are you talking about i don’t have a car_  
Rico:  _You just happened to walk into a tree._  
Petra:  _and i hugged it #dealwithit_.  
Rico:  _I watched a documentary about the Fair Trade banana industry yesterday. Here is the link if you need moral support._  
Petra: _omg Rico go away (thanks i’ll watch it)_

Petra giggled, but stopped scrolling down when she remembered it wasn’t actually her phone. “Well, you saw me drunk and begging for a kiss, so it’s not like I had a shred of dignity left to begin with. Besides, I told you about the tree, didn’t I?”

“I wasn’t sure you were serious.”

“I’m always serious. Anyway, want a ride?” Petra offered, pointing at a pink bicycle parked across the street. “That’s my bike.” Annie looked at the thing. She opened her mouth but obviously had no idea what to say. Petra burst out laughing. “Oh god, you actually fell for it. That’s not my bike. I don’t have a bike. It’d probably look even whackier than this one if I did, though, with mean-looking training wheels. I had one like that when I was a kid. I ran into everything, it was so bad my dad ended up drawing me fake speeding tickets.” She took out her phone again and checked her father’s Facebook profile, looking for a particular photo album. “The fee was like, half a candy bar, so needless to say I never paid anything and became an outlaw. Here, look.”

Annie took the phone and studied the picture. “Queen of the playground, mud on her face and ribbons in her hair, huh?”

“And all I wanted was to go out and play in a comfy old tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, but no. Daddy’s little girl had to wear cute dresses and tie her hair up with colorful scrunchies. He probably ended up regretting it, though, considering the amount of clothes I ruined. He wanted a princess, all he got was a tomboy.”

“I was the opposite,” Annie chuckled. “I’d look at the girls’ pretty clothes, their little hair pins and everything… but my dad was on the practical side. He wouldn’t even let me grow my hair out,” she said, twirling the strings of her hoodie around her finger. “When I turned six, he signed me up for advanced kickboxing lessons. He was always going on and on about how I needed to toughen up because the world didn’t owe me anything. The instructor had no idea what to do with me. She’d bring me some of her kids’ Disney storybooks to keep me busy, and whenever the adults were taking a break, she’d come over and teach me a few moves. I wasn’t bad at it, but…” Annie shrugged light-heartedly. “I guess my dad wanted a boy and all he got was—”

“And all he got was a warrior princess,” Petra interrupted, tilting her head to catch her eyes. Annie returned her smile.

 

* * *

 

Petra leaned against the window as the train began to move. Annie was still waiting on the opposite platform. She waved her goodbye and debated whether to embarrass her horribly by drawing a big heart on the foggy glass pane, but decided against it. She didn’t want to turn her feelings into a joke, into something harmless. 

The train exited the station, gliding through the night on the elevated railway. Petra watched the shimmering city lights below, but soon turned her attention to her phone. She closed her eyes for a second, trying to sigh her uneasiness away while the Facebook app loaded Annie’s profile. Time slowed to a crawl.

She could tell right away that Annie wasn’t a heavy user. Her timeline was mostly filled with birthday wishes from friends, the occasional comment on someone’s status or picture. No posts of her own. By Facebook standards, she didn’t have many friends. Petra clicked on the Photos tab, expecting only a handful of pictures. Her heart skipped a beat when it turned out there were over two hundred of them. She brought a hand to her lips and started browsing the many albums Annie was tagged in. Most of them belonged to one friend in particular – Petra realized it was probably the one Annie had mentioned earlier, the entrepreneur girl. Hitch. She was pretty. Light hair, clear eyes, something strange. Were they close? Entranced, Petra’s eyes darted from one picture to the next, reading comment threads, album titles.

A party. Annie, a beer in hand, raising it to the camera with a smile. Next picture, beer almost finished, this time Hitch has her arm wrapped around Annie, holding the camera with the other hand. A series of pictures of them looking drunk and making faces.  
Annie wearing an oversized white tee-shirt and not much else, sitting by a window with a steaming cup of something. Amber light seeping in. Comment by Hitch:  _bed head 5pm (long story)._  
Annie at another party, looking at the camera like a deer caught in headlights. Comment by Hitch:  _Her majesty trying to convince herself that eating a greasy pizza slice with fork + knife makes it gourmet food._ Reply by Annie:  _coming from someone who eats caviar like it’s peanut butter…_ Hitch: _that’s the way you’re supposed to eat it, girl. Like it’s cheap._  
Hitch making out with a guy with a weird haircut, Annie in the background talking to someone. She’s wearing a dress. She’s beautiful.  
Annie looking bored, checking her phone.  
Annie Annie Annie.  
An album called “Baby doll”. They look younger. The comments make it sound like it’s basically Hitch playing dress up with Annie. There’s this picture of Annie with her hair down and heavily made-up eyes. Hitch:  _told you you’d be rocking the kohl._ The next one is even more striking, this time Annie is wearing glittering jewelry, red lipstick, and the kohl has been smeared down her cheeks  _just so_. It’s over the top, it’s too much, perfect. Hitch:  _MY WORK IS DONE._  They’re both in the next picture, Hitch’s makeup just as heavy as Annie’s. She’s wearing a loose top that casually hints at everything underneath without revealing any of it, resting her head on Annie’s shoulder. For once, Annie is the one taking the picture. Hitch is giving the camera a smoldering look that leaves Petra’s mouth dry.  
Some sort of summer camp or field trip. Old pictures. They’re kids, teens maybe. Hitch has long hair and a distinctive style, like she jumped straight out of Nabokov’s  _Lolita_. Annie looks like a skinny ten-year-old boy. Sun-drenched, shielding her eyes, a lovely smile. Wearing a washed-out Disney tee-shirt. Queen Elsa from  _Frozen_.  
Petra’s head is spinning.


End file.
